Thursday, 7 February 2013

"I think the Alda model can easily be taken up pretty much anywhere" Alda, Iceland, interview. Part Two

In the
second part of the interview with Hjalti Hrafn Hafthorsson of Alda, we discuss the post-crash situation
in Iceland,
Alda’s plans for the future and how present society might change.

I suppose the story that’s emerged from Iceland
since the crash of 2008 is that the state didn’t bail-out insolvent banks
because it didn’t have the money, and as result the Icelandic economy is
recovering and the depredations of austerity have been avoided. Is that an
accurate summary or does it miss something?

The three
big banks in Iceland
were nationalized during the crash. Two of them were almost immediately given
over to stakeholders; no-one seems to know who owns them today. There are plans
to re-privatise the third one. The government took on a lot of debt but the
bankers weren’t bailed out, at least not the high profile Icelandic bankers.
Like I said, no-one seems to know who owns these banks today. There were
considerable austerity measures, the recession has been felt by everyone. The
government claims that the economy is recovering but since there have been no
structural reforms in the economic model we are working in all that really means
is that the rich are again getting richer and the rest of us must wait for the
money to trickle down.

There was a large-scale constitutional reform
process in Iceland
in 2012. Could you say a bit about that process and what Alda’s input was?

An elected
committee of 25 individuals was given mandate to write a new constitution. The
election was ruled to be illegal because of a technicality but the parliament
chose to form the comity anyways. Alda turned in very detailed suggestions for
constitutional reforms but it was very difficult to get feedback on whether
they were even read by the committee. None of them made it into the constitution
bill in any recognizable form. The new constitution bill is in many ways
progressive but it is being opposed by some very powerful interest groups,
namely the fishing industry, and now it seems likely that it will be held up in
the parliament until elections come this spring. Constitution changes need to
be accepted by two parliaments so if the bill isn’t voted on before elections
we can forget about any constitution reforms for at least four more years,
probably just altogether.

Alda wants a welfare system that maintains the
foundations of civil society, offering equal access to education, health-care
and a pension. What, in practice, does this involve?

Pretty much
what it involves now: people and companies paying taxes which are put to use
running the infrastructure of a healthy society. Alda has a topic group working
on reforming the education system in very fundamental ways and some of the
versions of unconditional basic income we have talked about require
comprehensive revision of the welfare system.

What advice would you give to people in other
countries struggling against endless corporate bail-outs, government-imposed
austerity and economic stagnation or collapse? What should they do?

Start where
you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. I think the Alda model is good for
promoting social change and I think it can easily be taken up pretty much
anywhere.

What does the future
hold for Alda? What are your immediate aims?

We have a lot of projects going on. Elections are coming up, so we are holding
a randomly selected citizens assembly to set the tone for the political parties
on what the people want to see happen during next term. We are working on
getting a bill through parliament about laws for co-operatives. We are working
with the labour unions to get a shorter work day on the agenda. We are working
two schools on democratic education programmes. We are starting an eco-village
in collaboration with other groups. We have more topic groups working than I
can recall at the top of my head. In the future I hope we will do just what we
have been doing, get people involved in finding solutions to problems and then
agitate for those solutions.

One recurring question is how current society will
change. A large scale, oppositional movement seems indispensable. Do you have
any ideas about what is necessary to build that movement?

It might take a large scale movement but I think change is
better brought about by many smaller ones. There is a vast variety of groups
and ideologies out there working on different fronts. That has great advantages
as well as disadvantages. I am not sure that a unified big movement would be
better, that kind of vision for change almost always involves heavy top down,
authoritative organization. The spontaneous organization of smaller groups
trying to influence and affect social change through diverse methods is more
likely to lead to a happy society in the end.

There is also the question on how
change should take form. Some believe that change cannot occur except in a
sweeping revolution, others are content with any progress in the right
direction. Both visions have merits and I think there must be a little bit of
both. There is a lot of build-up to any revolution.

About Me

Capitalism is not beautiful, said John Maynard Keynes. It is not intelligent, it is not virtuous and it not just. “But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.”
This blog is about the ideologies that mask the ugliness and injustice beneath the surface. And how our perplexity might be diminished.
You can contact me at idealogically@gmail.com